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But as to where the knowle dge of h ow to make a T T device comes from, an reminded of a computer program i wrote at uni many years ago. A cool part of it was for it to work it needed to all ready be working. It was a function type program that refered to itself.

So for TT to be invented we would need to assume it would exist and visitors would come so what would we need to do to enable such visitors to come and not screw up the time line. Kinda links into my long held belief that TTers need a particular type of landing spot \ arrival platform, so until we come up with one we won't getting no visitors.

I've watched a couple but don't get it - if they take over the bodies of people who were supposed to have died then aren't they changing that history each time ?

Yes - changing history is the point. However, the Butterfly Effect is often misunderstood. Nobody is saying that ever flap of a butterfly's wings causes a hurricane. Most differences make no difference. If the Wright brothers hadn't invented the aeroplane when they did, someone else would have a few weeks later. So there are just a few key points where you can make a big difference and that's where the Travellers try to effect change. That said, no point making more ripples then you need to, hence the protocols about not killing people, saving people or having babies.

Their technology allows them to inhabit the bodies of people from the past. They know where and when a bunch of people will die. They believe it preferable to take over the body of a "dead" person than that of a living person who has not lived their whole life yet. Something to do with morals 'n stuff.

btw: One thing I don't think ANY time show tv show or movie has shown us / dealt with, is the "fact" that if you went back and did NOTHING to alter history, interacted with nothing, then returned to "your" time, the time you returned to would be uncognizable provided you went back far enough....... or would it ? If you were able to go back 1 million years, then go forward 1 million years (as opposed to having a kinda tether to your original time and returning via that) then does anyone believe the "present" you returned to would look IDENTICAL to the one you originally left. And if you do then, seriously ?! You believe all the trillions upon trillions of variables which played out over the million years gave the exact same results which resulted in this identical present. I can just no accept that as even remotely possible.

It's possible, because of abstraction. Most differences make no difference. This is partly because of averaging. When you look at the big picture, individual behaviours cancel out and what matters is the gross average. It's partly because other things adjust to compensate for differences. It's partly because there are thresholds and a difference only matters if it causes something to cross a threshold that flips it into a different behaviour. Abstraction isn't just a thing that humans invented. It really applies in the universe to reduce complexity. This is the approach the show seems to be taking and I think it's reasonable.

But, were a show or movie start with the time travel inventors testing this out and proving you could go back and return to an identical future if you made sure to change nothing, then this has great ramifications with the concept(?) of destiny. Sure, changing NOTHING would be hard, but go with me with this, assume it IS possible.

Imagine this: someone from the distant future has invented time travel, that someone has found a way to return to 2018 to a living facility designed to affect its surroundings in zero way. Imagine an uber self contained bunker with fixes for any of your "but what about...."s.
Now this person has brought with him accurate records of your life, down to the teeniest of detail. Since he isn't interacting with the world, everything will proceed exactly as it did the first time. So this guy knows exactly what you're gonna choose to eat today, where you go, the number of steps you make, the sounds you hear, everything, heck he even knows how you will respond to this post. If you bought a box of 20,000 dice and dropped it now, that guys knows the score you'll get on every one of them. In fact, in his records is a photo of your kitchen floor after you emptied the dice onto it.

Destiny and free-will, shot to shitz, right ?!

And finally: methinks before time travel can be invented, someone needs to first build "reception areas / arrival points" for future time travels to, well arrive at. Areas like my uber-bunkers where travellers could arrive, affect nothing, and return. Before we have these, time travel can't be invented, the universe won't allow it.

Kinda like, ish, you won't ever get house guests until you've got a spare room for them to sleep in. So build that room THEN guests will come. . Of course we'd never know that guests HAD come cos the room is self contained.

I'm not a big believer in that version of free-will anyway. The reason we rarely see that dramatised is that it makes for dull drama. Generally people travel to the past because they want to make a change, not because they want everything to remain the same. If your bunkers exist, time travel would be pointless because they wouldn't affect anything and they wouldn't learn anything. Staying in the bunker would be the same whether you time-travelled or not.

If time travel into the past is ever possible, I believe it would be impossible to change anything. The time traveller's actions have already happened, even though he or she hasn't experienced them before they travel back .

So much for "free will".

I'm not a big fan of that kind of free will anyway. And there are other models of time travel. In one model, travelling back in time causes a new timeline to split off. This may replace the original timeline, or the original may continue as a kind of parallel universe. Killing your own grandfather is only a paradox if your view of causality is limited to a single timeline.

I've watched a couple but don't get it - if they take over the bodies of people who were supposed to have died then aren't they changing that history each time ?

Yes - changing history is the point. However, the Butterfly Effect is often misunderstood. Nobody is saying that ever flap of a butterfly's wings causes a hurricane. Most differences make no difference. If the Wright brothers hadn't invented the aeroplane when they did, someone else would have a few weeks later. So there are just a few key points where you can make a big difference and that's where the Travellers try to effect change. That said, no point making more ripples then you need to, hence the protocols about not killing people, saving people or having babies.

Their technology allows them to inhabit the bodies of people from the past. They know where and when a bunch of people will die. They believe it preferable to take over the body of a "dead" person than that of a living person who has not lived their whole life yet. Something to do with morals 'n stuff.

btw: One thing I don't think ANY time show tv show or movie has shown us / dealt with, is the "fact" that if you went back and did NOTHING to alter history, interacted with nothing, then returned to "your" time, the time you returned to would be uncognizable provided you went back far enough....... or would it ? If you were able to go back 1 million years, then go forward 1 million years (as opposed to having a kinda tether to your original time and returning via that) then does anyone believe the "present" you returned to would look IDENTICAL to the one you originally left. And if you do then, seriously ?! You believe all the trillions upon trillions of variables which played out over the million years gave the exact same results which resulted in this identical present. I can just no accept that as even remotely possible.

It's possible, because of abstraction. Most differences make no difference. This is partly because of averaging. When you look at the big picture, individual behaviours cancel out and what matters is the gross average. It's partly because other things adjust to compensate for differences. It's partly because there are thresholds and a difference only matters if it causes something to cross a threshold that flips it into a different behaviour. Abstraction isn't just a thing that humans invented. It really applies in the universe to reduce complexity. This is the approach the show seems to be taking and I think it's reasonable.

But, were a show or movie start with the time travel inventors testing this out and proving you could go back and return to an identical future if you made sure to change nothing, then this has great ramifications with the concept(?) of destiny. Sure, changing NOTHING would be hard, but go with me with this, assume it IS possible.

Imagine this: someone from the distant future has invented time travel, that someone has found a way to return to 2018 to a living facility designed to affect its surroundings in zero way. Imagine an uber self contained bunker with fixes for any of your "but what about...."s.
Now this person has brought with him accurate records of your life, down to the teeniest of detail. Since he isn't interacting with the world, everything will proceed exactly as it did the first time. So this guy knows exactly what you're gonna choose to eat today, where you go, the number of steps you make, the sounds you hear, everything, heck he even knows how you will respond to this post. If you bought a box of 20,000 dice and dropped it now, that guys knows the score you'll get on every one of them. In fact, in his records is a photo of your kitchen floor after you emptied the dice onto it.

Destiny and free-will, shot to shitz, right ?!

And finally: methinks before time travel can be invented, someone needs to first build "reception areas / arrival points" for future time travels to, well arrive at. Areas like my uber-bunkers where travellers could arrive, affect nothing, and return. Before we have these, time travel can't be invented, the universe won't allow it.

Kinda like, ish, you won't ever get house guests until you've got a spare room for them to sleep in. So build that room THEN guests will come. . Of course we'd never know that guests HAD come cos the room is self contained.

I'm not a big believer in that version of free-will anyway. The reason we rarely see that dramatised is that it makes for dull drama. Generally people travel to the past because they want to make a change, not because they want everything to remain the same. If your bunkers exist, time travel would be pointless because they wouldn't affect anything and they wouldn't learn anything. Staying in the bunker would be the same whether you time-travelled or not.